Irish hotel group to buy Gillette’s west London HQ
Regency stuns retail and office giants by securing £30m purchaseIrish hotel chain Regency Hotel Group is set to buy Gillette’s famous art deco office headquarters in Isleworth, west London. The relatively unknown hotel group has beaten heavyweights, including retailers Tesco and Ikea and property companies Heron, Hines, Kier and Bannertown, to one of the most attractive development sites in London.The £30m deal is with a wholly owned subsidiary of Regency called the Bonnington Group and is conditional on planning consent being agreed with the London Borough of Hounslow on the 10 acre (4 ha) site, which is home to the grade II-listed art deco building with an iconic clock tower. The development brief on the site proposes up to 500,000 sq ft (46,451 sq m) of mixed-use development, and the site falls within Hounslow Council’s strategic employment area.The site boasts a 327,000 sq ft (30,380 sq m) office building next to seven other manufacturing and office buildings totalling 511,000 sq ft (47,473 sq m) at the junction of the A4 and Syon Lane. The sale of the site to a hotel group will come as surprise because west London office experts believed the site would be bought for office, industrial or retail use. Regency Hotel Group is owned and run by the Dublin-based McGettigan family. Dennis McGettigan, hotel manager and son of founder James McGettigan, declined to comment on the site sale but said the company was looking to expand in England owing to high occupancy rates and favourable financial conditions for overseas investors. He added: ‘England is a very good place to look as a hotel group to expand our business.’Regency owns a total of seven properties. Only two are in England: the Bonnington Hotel on Southampton Row in London’s Holborn, and the Cavendish Hotel in Eastbourne. The remainder are in Ireland. The flagship hotel in Dublin, the Regency Hotel, is located near Dublin airport, and the two others are in Dublin city centre. Both English hotels are held by the Bonnington Group subsidiary, in addition to a hotel called the Bonnington Hotel in Dubai. The group has financial backing from Allied Irish Bank.US-based Gillette is moving its factory to Poland in 2007. Gillette has owned the freehold of the site since 1937. NAI Fuller Peiser is acting for Gillette. Both declined to comment. The area has attracted the attention of hotel operators because its proximity of Heathrow airport and central London provides passing trade from business travellers. Radisson Edwardian Hotels has agreed a £35m deal to build a new hotel in nearby Syon Park.
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